Star Wars Blu-ray: First to feature THX Media Director

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The forthcoming Star Wars Blu-rays will be the first discs to feature THX Media Director, the company's audio and video calibration metadata that tells compatible TVs, home cinema systems and projectors what settings to choose for an optimum theatre-style experience.

Speaking exclusively to Pocket-lint, Rick Dean, senior vice president of THX and chairman of the 3D@Home Consortium, said that while there will be other forms of content available, the Star Wars Blu-rays, available in Complete Saga and trilogy specific box-sets from 12 September (in the UK), will debut the technology:

"Star Wars will be the first Blu-ray set," Dean told us. "We made that agreement, of course, keeping it in the family.

"The metadata on that disc will go into a Blu-ray player, which will read that metadata and, through HDMI, will send the exact settings that the display has to go into. So, if you’re going between games, or watching your photographs, or playing back a movie, or doing all of them but switching back and forth, the set will follow the proper settings based on the media."

Unfortunately, however, at present it is unlikely that you own a TV, AV amplifier or projector that can read the data. Compatible kit is not due until later this year, although major manufacturers do have products in the pipeline: "We've already announced deals with JVC, LG and Epson with their high-end projectors, and there's going to be more coming down the line," said Dean.

"We have also been working with the chip manufacturers so that instead of the final product manufacturers having to do extra firmware and stuff, the chips will come enabled already."

Certainly, it's an entirely new direction for THX: "These are exciting times," said Dean.

Would you like your TV (or, rather, the content) dictate the optimum settings for movies? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below...